06/04/2022
The Policy Problem
The Policy Problem
The Policy Solution
- Direct federal government support
- C$600 million over three years
- tax credit up to 25% of labour costs
- applies to “Qualified Journalism Organization”
- Adjudicated by Independent Advisory Board on eligibility for journalism tax measures
The Policy Solution
- 159 applications for support
- 2 rejections
- No information on which or why
The Data
- Crowd-sourced information on media transitions
- Active monitoring
- Partial validation by comparison with News Media Canada
The Data
The Challenges
- Are declines in local news supply by newspapers being offset by increases in news supply from digital and broadcast?
- How do you link a newspaper to a municipality?
- How do you treat marginal newspapers?
The Solutions
- Count only explicitly closures of newspapers (dailies and community e.g. weeklies)
- Find municipal election results for: mayoral margin of victory, turnout, and number of mayoral candidates back to 2001.
- Supplement with a database of municipal election results that cover roughly the same time period of Canada’s 100 largest cities (Breux, Couture, and Koop 2017).
- Track down missing gaps through provincial databases and contacting municipalities.
The Data
- 116 unique municipalities
| Elections | Cities |
|---|---|
| 4 | 38 |
| 5 | 66 |
| 6 | 11 |
| 7 | 1 |
The Data
| N | Mean | SD | missings | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Margin | 463 | 30.53 | 36.22 | 92.00 |
| n_candidates | 542 | 4.63 | 4.55 | 13.00 |
| Turnout | 517 | 36.58 | 8.80 | 38.00 |
The Data
Correlation of dependent variables
The Results
The Results
Two-Way Fixed Effects Model
Two-Way Fixed Effects Model
Two-Way Fixed Effects Model
Future Paths
- Could local news decline be linked to increased role of national level campaign features in vote choice (e.g. leader impressions)
- Evaluate link with .
- Utilize continuous nature of newspaper closures.
- Evaluate link with status as news desserts (i.e. communities without newspapers).
Concluding questions
- How surprised are people at a null finding?
- What is the normative significance of a null effect in the current climate in Canada?
- What is the theoretical significance of a true null effect from this case.?
References
Breux, Sandra, Jérôme Couture, and Royce Koop. 2017. “Turnout in Local Elections: Evidence from Canadian Cities, 2004–2014.” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 50 (3): 699–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000842391700018X.